Blog Post 7

What is meant by uses and gratifications? Which uses and gratifications do you think are the most important for people today?

As humans, we all have needs and desires. They can stem from a range of things: anything for a need for love and companionship, to a desire to be amused after a long day at work, or many more. People search for things to find fulfilment. Without knowing it, many people turn to the media to meet their needs. They then feel gratified for a while because the media met a need. Having found an outlet, people will keep returning to the source that gave them a bit of fulfilment.

Just about any of the gratifications list in the book are important. Since everyone is so different and each one has a multitude of needs and desires at any one given point, it’s hard to point to just a handful of gratifications to encompass the whole of society. One gratification I could almost see common to most people, though, is the desire to find amusement/entertainment. With the prevalence of media in today’s culture and the booming entertainment industry, it’s not hard to guess that many people would want that gratification. With the ever-changing and advancing technology of today, we have crammed more into the day. Every moment we need to fill. This need to constantly be going is causing stress and exhaustion in people. So often we just need a moment to step back and relax. That’s why so many people turn to media for their enjoyment. They need a release from the craziness always swirling around them.

Blog Post 6

Women have been fighting a hard battle throughout the course of history in order to get equal rights. The feminist movement did a lot for women and it challenged many of the stigmas surrounding us. Women no longer just are mothers and caregivers, but they can get jobs and earn a living. Even with great leaps and bounds in social elevation that women have had throughout history, there is still a long way to go. Miss Representation shows a whole slew of things that still need to change. The media tries to lessen the facts and I found myself shocked by the low percentages of women in positions of leadership. I knew there weren’t high numbers, but I didn’t expect them to be so low. However, it’s not actually that surprising when women are bombarded with images that to be in power for our sex means that they are bossy or got their because of their bodies.

Through the media, women are just portrayed as objects. Beauty standards glare at us from everywhere we look. Constantly we see those photoshopped images of models that tell us exactly how we should look. Seeing this, we feel inadequate when we don’t fit the mold. Women spend tons of time and money just trying to achieve the unattainable perfections we are told that will make people like us and give us fulfilment. Media is a machine that tries to keep us consuming it and it knows just how to keep us interested. Sadly, wholesome media isn’t always what sells, so we are constantly surrounded by images and narratives that are negative to us.

Psychoanalytical Blog Post

Psychoanalytical criticism draws heavily on the psychological theories of Freud and Jung, which deals mostly in the conscious and unconscious. According to these psychologies, the conscious is constantly working with or against the subconscious mind. A great representation of this is the id, ego, and superego. Freud came up with these to show the different aspects of individuals’ minds. The id is mostly focused on pleasure and is more of an unconscious thought. The superego is the part of ourselves that is making decisions and doing the things people need to do. It draws from moral motivations and culture to keep the individual in check. The superego is pretty much the opposite of the id. The ego is the go-between of these two other things. It likes a bit of pleasure, but it also takes into account of the restrictions in place.

In the TV show Jane The Virgin, these three aspects of thought can be applied to the characters. The show focuses on a family of three women: Alba, the grandmother; Xiomara, the daughter; and Jane, the granddaughter. Xiomara is easily the id, where she lives her life based on how she’s feeling. She’s a free-spirit, which leads her to be pregnant with Jane at sixteen. Alba is the superego and is very motivated by religion. She is the most conservative of the group and really drills into Jane that she should save her virginity until she is married. Jane is the ego and has a little bit of both of her mother and grandmother in her. She follows the direction of her grandmother and decides to stay a virgin until marriage, but she isn’t only motivated by religion like her grandmother.

Blog Post 4

Marxism deals heavily in ideologies. Just like the Marxist theories dealing with economics, Marxism focuses on what are the ideologies that are being pushed by the rich and powerful/ruling class. Many aspects of culture are determined by this dominant ideology and people not in charge try to adhere to these things in an attempt to become part of the elite. Marxists believe that the media is overrun by these ideologies and everything the working class will consume just reinforces these ideas. They think that the working class' dissatisfaction comes from needing to work to consume to try and become like the ruling class. They work at jobs they don't always like to purchase more things to meet the status quo, which is set by others and maintained in a way that prevents the working class from becoming the elite.
In analyzing a piece of media or another work, the critic should determine what the dominant ideology is that is being put forth in the work. They should ask questions like: How is this work aiding or subverting the ideology (or status quo) put forth? How is the ruling class starting on top, or how is the status quo being maintained? How is the lower class trying to move up in society? These kinds of questions will aid in the analysis. The focus in the analysis should be on distinguishing the "us" and the "them" presented in the media. How are those groups separated and what is maintaining that separation? What makes people the "in" group and what makes them outsiders?

Blog Post 3

Having gone through all the AP English classes in high school, I had become accustomed to analyzing text. I could pick apart paragraphs and chapters to find the deeper meanings behind them, but I didn’t ever try to analyze visual media, especially not movies and TV. After learning about semiotics, I have been picking apart what I’m watching. I now take more time to think of the many choices that are made to make the entertainment. I’ve always known the music behind a TV show or movie is conveying the emotion that they want you to feel, but I never thought about paying closer attention to it, or even omitting it altogether. I look at how scenes are lit in a different way. The shadows or brightness can really say a lot about the characters, setting, scene. In one show I saw recently, I noticed a character’s face half covered in shadow after they had made a decision for ‘the greater good’ that would end up killing some people. All the other scene’s this character was in were lit where we could see her face. Before this class, I wouldn’t think deeper into why they would do such a thing in the TV show. I would be more annoyed that I couldn’t see her face, rather than realizing it was hinting at the terrible thing she was letting happen. I’m excited to learn even more in this class to improve my skills at analyzing media, now that I can already see my view changing.

Blog 2

Sherlock is a very interesting show that is rich in using different clues and observations for Sherlock to solve crimes. Each little detail that could easily be overlooked, is just fuel for Sherlock’s deductive reasoning. He looked deeper into things and finds meanings in things that could almost be similar to doing a semiotic analysis.

A few scenes stood out that held a few symbolic notes. When Sherlock is face to face with the serial killer, there is a moment where the cab driver is in the cab talking to Sherlock. After the cab driver says, “I’m not going to kill you,” the lighting dims and there is a foreboding note in the music that accompanies it. This is to show the sinister nature of the cab driver.

In the next scene between Sherlock and the cab driver, they come to a room with only a few lights lit. They illuminate a starkly empty room with long tables absent of people. This is all to give a sense of Sherlock’s apparent isolation at that moment. He is alone with a killer. It gives the feel that Sherlock is in need of help, but he doesn’t have anyone and this makes the scene feel dire.

For the appearance of all the characters, Sherlock has a popped collar most of the time to suggest he blocks everyone out, or that he is alone in his intellect. The cab driver is wearing casual clothes and nothing to make him stand out. There is no fashion statement or bold colors that would cause attention to be drawn to him, which is exactly what he is going for. He even says as much. Watson’s can is a symbol of his emotion baggage, which in working with Sherlock he forgets (just like in the chase scene where he forgets his cane in the restaurant.

Blog Post 1

At first glance of this ad, it just looks like an 'L' shape. When you look a bit closer, you realize it is actually a woman. She doesn't have any clothing on so it emphasizes her figure, which is exactly what the text is saying, 'True Beauty is Curved'. This ad easily can attract the male population's attention. Making this ad for men, could imply that Samsung believes men with buy this product more than women would. Men are thought to be more technologically savy, so they are marketing towards that.

The tag-line also is implying what sort of body shape is preferred. In today's culture, it is thought of as beautiful to be tall and skinny, if you are a girl. This ad is just feeling on that stigma. We see a woman thought to be beautiful by these standards, and is supposed to make the product appeal to us more.

The warm brown tomes in this ad also suggest stability, structure, and support, which is evening that a tech company would want people to believe of them. They are heavily acknowledging the structure of this laptop, which is very easy to recognize. The support could imply that they have good tech support for when something goes wrong with the product, or also it could be more cleanly tied back to the structure of the product, implying it won't fall apart.

The product itself doesn't take up much room in the ad. It's there to actually show what the product is, but not much else